The Public Data Group

Statement on Public Data

Spring 2015 Update

Companies House

Met Office

Ordnance Survey

Land Registry Introduction

The Public Data Group (PDG) brings together four public sector bodies - Companies House, Land Registry, Met Office and Ordnance Survey - that collect, refine, manage and distribute data on the nation’s companies, property, weather and geography. Collectively they form a substantial part of the National Information Infrastructure(^1).

The Public Data Group’s data is made available through a variety of channels and licences and includes both commercial agreements and the provision of Open Data(^2).

The value of the data, and services built on that data, which are charged for, is vast – with Ordnance Survey data widely used in the insurance sector, and the billions of pounds saved by the use of Met Office data in the aviation industry as just two examples. Equally, the value of the Open Data released by the Public Data Group is very significant and growing. The most recent estimate placed the value of Open Data released by PDG at over £900m annually(^3).

Given the growing interest and importance of open data to the economy and society we felt it was important to provide in one short document a description of the kind of data these organisations already make available, their rationale towards open data. We therefore published a Summer Statement in July 2014.

This update builds on the previous statement and provides an assessment of progress on earlier commitments. It particularly focuses on the efforts of PDG to support businesses and therefore presents the results of a recent survey of organisations using PDG data. It also includes case studies on some of the responses we received, as well as setting out the actions we have taken since the survey. This document also provides background information on the various challenge activities undertaken by PDG members and the impact they have achieved.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to get in touch at PDG@bis.gsi.gov.uk.

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(^1) The formal creation of which was recommended by the Shakespeare Review in 2013 with a first iteration published in October 2013: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-information-infrastructure

(^2) Although Open Data has many definitions one of the clearest is in the The Open Data Handbook: “Open data is data that can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone - subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike”. Available at: http://opendatahandbook.org/en/what-is-open-data/.

(^3) Market Assessment of Public Sector Information, Deloitte, 2013. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/198905/bis-13-743-market-assessment-of-public-sector-information.pdf Who are the Public Data Group? The Public Data Group was created in 2011 as an Advisory Group to Ministers at the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. PDG has an independent Chair and brings together Companies House, Land Registry, Met Office and Ordnance Survey.

Public Data Group members perform key public roles and produce a wide range of nationally important data. The four organisations contain within them world leading expertise on both their subject matters and on the manipulation and management of data. They underpin a whole range of vital activities within the UK while also carrying the flag of British excellence globally – attending and advising numerous international bodies.

The following descriptions and statistics aim to both capture the essence of the role they play within the nation’s economy as well as giving a sense of the sheer scale and complexities of their activities.

**Companies House:** registers the incorporation and dissolution of companies and examines, stores and disseminates information delivered under the Companies Act and related legislation.

There are around 3.4 million companies registered in the UK, and approximately 600,000 new companies were incorporated last year. Over 130 million documents are accessible on the register of companies.

**Land Registry:** registers the ownership of land and property in England and Wales. It is one of the largest transactional databases in Europe.

Land Registry dealt with 26.3 million transactions in 2013/14. 86 per cent of the land mass of England and Wales is registered, adding up to more than 13 million hectares. Over 24 million titles are recorded in the Land Register.

**Met Office:** is the UK’s National Weather Service.

One of the world’s most accurate forecasters, using more than 10 million global weather observations a day, an advanced atmospheric model, a high performance supercomputer and meteorological expertise to create 3,000 tailored forecasts and briefings a day.

**Ordnance Survey:** is Great Britain’s national mapping authority.

It produces the definitive digital picture of Britain’s geography and holds the largest database of its kind anywhere in the world, made up of almost half a billion features. In 12/13 99.6% of significant real-world features, which are greater than six months old, were represented in Ordnance Survey’s geographic data. How PDG data being used? In order to better understand how PDG data is being used by organisations, and to help build an evidence base to better target efforts to support the data agenda, we recently ran a survey. We are grateful to all those who took part and helped to promote the survey. The section below provides a summary of the results. A further breakdown of the results in included in Annex A and an anonymised file of the survey responses will be available on Data.Gov.UK.

Who and how We received 143 responses from organisations including a range of size and sectors - from GCSE students, to established major financial institutions.

Responses supported the idea that the value in data lies in combining it with other data sources. In fact almost 86% of responses from those using data were using data from more than one source. There were very few instances of organisations using the same combination of data sets but the importance of both Ordnance Survey data and data from Local Authorities was clearly made. Another noticeable point is the number of respondents who aren’t exclusively using open data. 40% for example were using paid data from private sources in addition to other data sources.

Awareness Responses to the survey showed that there are multiple sources of information about data available. PDG websites were only listed by 22% of respondents as the place they found the most information. Although it is arguably to be expected that PDG websites may not be the first users look if there search is for public sector information in general the low percentage does suggest that more could maybe be done to make PDG websites more accessible.

On awareness of both the open and paid for data offered by PDG, the majority seemed aware but a significant minority did not. This suggests that further work may necessary in this area.

Accessibility Respondents were also asked to rank from 1 to 5 the challenges they faced using PDG data with 1 being easiest and 5 being hardest. ‘Pricing’ and ‘licencing’ were identified as the biggest challenges. ‘Formatting’, ‘skills’ and ‘awareness’ were generally deemed less of an issue.

In terms of other practical steps that PDG could take to simplify usage of their data, the creation of a ‘contact point’ came out top overall.

The overwhelming theme from the additional comments box was that there should be a list of public sector data assets. This was encouraging confirmation of the importance of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) being developed by Cabinet Office and PDG members look forward to continuing to engage with its development. See a note on PDG’s approach to the NII here.

Developer Licences Finally, the survey also asked questions around ‘Developer Licences’. Here the dominant theme was for that these licenses should be as generous as possible - both in terms of revenue businesses could make before paying and the timescale for which they could hold the licence. **Actions arising from the PDG survey**

The results of the survey were discussed at a roundtable that brought together a range of policy perspectives from across Government as well as representatives of data-using businesses. The meeting was attended by PDG members, the Shareholder Executive, Cabinet Office, the National Archives, the Open Data Institute and two data businesses, Geoltyix and Doorda.

The discussion was extremely useful and helped both to provide a sense check of the results of the survey and to develop actions for PDG members going forward.

On awareness, the discussion highlighted the challenge users face in finding and easily understand the information that they needed. Alternative ways of making licencing easier to understand and use, and of how awareness of data sets could be increased were therefore discussed.

On accessibility, the conversation focused on contact points as the main request from respondents. It was noted that, while PDG members did already provide contact points, these could be made easier to find. In addition, in order to keep the costs of such contact points and other customer support to a reasonable level, FAQs on common issues should also be used.

On the developer licences, the discussion was broader than the issue of cost and time limit as there was a clear understanding that users would like the most generous terms available. The importance of simplicity and ease of access were stressed and the potential scope for using the new OS developer licence terms as a basis from which to work was also raised.

Based on the results of the survey and the roundtable discussion, PDG members have agreed to:

- Explore the steps they could take to make data pages, licencing terms and relevant information more easily discoverable via general internet searches and easier to understand.
- Look for opportunities to provide case studies of how others are using data and signposting to other relevant data sets and alongside data portals and new rata releases.
- Develop and improve FAQs to address common questions alongside data portals.
- Work with The National Archives and others to develop a simple toolkit for developer licenses that could be used and customised by others to reflect their bespoke needs but provide a common naming and approach and incorporate into the UK Government Licensing Framework.

The PDG businesses will provide an update on progress against these actions in winter 2015. Map and examples of where PDG data is being used

Please note not all responders agreed to have their details included on the map and that therefore there are more some responses not shown.

**Description:** Martin Dodd @eggmoonstudio is an independent app developer based in Liverpool UK and entered the mobile software market in 2012 with the release of Scope Nights: Astronomy Weather for iPhone, iPad and iPad touch, recommended as a Hot Product by Sky and Telescope Magazine. Scope Nights uses the UK 3-hourly site specific forecast data feed from Met Office DataPoint. **Data Used:** Met Office Open Data **Sector:** Data/Technology **Site:** http://eggmoonstudio.com

**Description:** emapsite is an established location content platform and spatial data aggregator providing a single on demand hosted managed source for open and paid-for geographic data from Ordnance Survey, BGS, EA and many other open and proprietary sources. **Data used:** Companies House, Land Registry, Ordnance Survey, Data.Gov.UK, Paid for private sector data providers **Sector:** Geospatial/mapping **Site:** www.emapsite.com

**Description:** Flood risk assessment and flood data modelling and analytics company. Producing location specific data on flood risks to a variety of customers, specifically insurers. **Data Used** Ordnance Survey, Data.Gov.UK **Sector:** Environment and weather **Site:** www.ambiental.co.uk

**Description:** The largest open database of companies and company data in the world. We are used by a wide variety of users, including government, companies, banks, journalists and civil society. **Data Used** Companies House Free Data, Data.Gov.UK, Local Government sources, Central Government sources, other public resources, including Gazette notices, Health & Safety violations, etc. **Sector:** Data/Technology **Site:** https://OpenCorporates.com

**Description:** Data strategy consulting: data architecture, data modelling, data governance, business integration and business analytics. **Data Used:** Ordnance Survey, Data.Gov.UK, Paid for private sector data providers **Sector:** Data/Technology **Site:** http://ekoner.com/aboutme

**Description:** Provides research and analysis, mainly to public sector on economic, planning ad other issues. **Data Used:** Companies House, Land Registry Ordnance Survey, Local Government sources **Sector:** Research and consulting **Site:** http://www.analytics.cambridge.co.uk

**Description:** AnalyticsCambridge What are PDG already doing to encourage wider usage of their data?

PDG members firmly believe that simply releasing data in the hope that someone uses it is not the best way to support innovation and growth in the UK. They therefore take part in a range of activities from attending events, offering skills training and running challenges with funding and support as prizes. The following section outlines some of the more notable examples and provides a timeline of past and future events.

Geovation

Not including the most recent challenge on housing which was jointly sponsored by Ordnance Survey and Land Registry, there have been 7 GeoVation Challenges since 2009, which together have created 28 new ventures and awarded £637,000 in funding. Topics have ranged from “How can we connect communities and visitors along the Wales Coast Path?” to “How can we help British business improve environmental performance?”

OS’s approach is intended to produce a business or venture that is well grounded in a problem worth solving, with a well scoped solution and a business model that sustains the solution to that problem has most chance of success. The challenge goes through a variety of stages from ideas generation, speaking to experts, initial hacks, refining ideas and receiving training, culminating in 10 teams with solid business ideas making a final pitch for funding. It’s specifically not a one off event.

Examples of ventures created include:

- Liftshare.com who were awarded £36,500 for the idea of a web-based platform that makes travel more cost-effective and less damaging to the environment through bringing people together to share car journeys. Liftshare.com has also just increased its number of employees from 18 to 29.
- Carbon Prophet (AR Carbon) was awarded £30,000 for the idea of a carbon trading scheme that mitigates the damaging effects of UK greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging farmers to exploit the natural ability of soil to absorb CO2 by changing their soil management practices. Launching later this year it is anticipated this project will initially create at least 20 new jobs.

More information can be found here.

Ordnance Survey are building on their success with GeoVation to create a Geospatial Innovation Hub. The Hub, located on the fringes of London’s Knowledge Quarter, will be home to a multifunctional team of entrepreneurial thinkers drawn from OS’s own talent pool and the broader geospatial industry, as well as those new to the industry that have been selected from developer, new media space and creative and design communities. More information can be found here.

Met Office hacks

Met Office are also particularly active in the hack space with two recent events providing a good example of the scope of their activity:

- Arranged a hack as part of NASA’s International Space App Challenge generating ideas such as clothing that connects to the Internet, a mobile app that finds the cheapest wifi connection or tracking air pollution with your phone. More details are here.
- Were partners in the V&A’s Digital Design Weekend where participants and audiences were invited to explore digital value, cultural value and ‘making’ value. See here. Recent events

2014

July

• 2 July: Land Registry hosted their first hack event at Head Office, Croydon to support developers • 15 - 17 July: Land Registry will be sitting on the plenary panel and speaking at the Open Knowledge Network in Berlin

August

• Young Rewired State Centre – Festival of Code for under 18s (Met Office, Ordnance Survey) • Young Rewired State Festival of Code in the Solent http://festivalofco.de (Ordnance Survey)

October

• 3 - 4 Sept: Strange Weather hackathon at Science Gallery, Dublin. Event designed and delivered in partnership - Met Office with the Science Gallery and Tapastreet • 20 - 21 Sept: Digital Design Weekend, V&A, London. Created by the V&A and Met Office, and including Microsoft Research, BBC R&D, Dundee Uni and Exeter College. http://productresearch.dundee.ac.uk/hacking-in-front-of-an-audience-met-office-at-the-va/ • GeoVation Housing Challenge launched (Land Registry and Ordnance Survey)

November

• 17 – 19 Oct: Connected Exeter at Met Office HQ, RAMM, Exeter College, Phoenix, Spacex, Exeter FabLab • Various dates - Open Data Masterclasses (Land Registry and Ordnance Survey) • 24-26 Oct: MozFest, Met Office provided a couple of Masterclass sessions as part of the Event.

2015

January/February

• 20th to 21st January – Land Registry presented at the EuroGeographics International Workshop on Spatial Data and Map Quality in Malta • 21st-22nd Ordnance Survey supported the Open Data Camp UK

Still to come...

April

• 11th -12th April Met Office will host the International Space Apps Challenge.

May

• 11-24th May Digital Shoreditch Festival (Ordnance Survey) • Land Registry to present at the INSPIRE-Geospatial World Forum 2015

June

• 17th June Met Office and Environmental Science to Services Partnership (ESSP) are presenting at "Collaboration Nation" at the the Digital Catapult. This is a session for winners of the "Solving Business Problems with Environmental Data" competition to present elevator pitches of projects.

July

• From the second quarter of 2015 Companies House will be making all its digital information available free of charge and will run an event showcasing the information. In addition they will be running hackathons in June-July (dates not yet settled) which will open up opportunities for entrepreneurs to come up with innovative ways of using the information. How Public Data Group members fit into the pathway of support for data driven businesses

Getting access to data - Public data is increasingly accessible for example:

- Data.Gov.UK brings together access to much of the public sectors data
- As well supporting the creation of new data making research data available to users is a core part of the Research Councils’ remit and is undertaken in a variety of ways. http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/datapolicy/
- Public Data Group members collect refine, manage and distribute data on the nation’s companies, property, weather and geography.

Catalyst support for using data - There are a range of activities aimed at encouraging and supporting the use of data such as:

- InnovateUK’s range of catalytically activity including its Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI), Innovation Vouchers and various data focused challenges.
- The Digital Catapult is actively engaged with data projects such as its Trusted Data Accelerator and initiatives around health, environmental and personal data.
- The Open Data Institute is playing a key role in supporting the development of open data businesses, particularly through its Open Data Challenge Series.
- Public Data Group members are actively engaged with encouraging businesses to use their data through hacks and other events. This support will be taken to the next level through the creation of Ordnance Survey’s Geospatial Innovation Hub aimed at providing geospatial expertise, guidance and support to developers and opportunities for collaborations with established businesses.

Infrastructure for using data - There are also numerous activities to ensure that there is the appropriate infrastructure to allow people to use data effectively such as:

- The Hartree Centre’s data intensive computing platforms mean they’re perfectly placed to develop, test and deploy new software, whilst our shared memory platform – one of the UK’s largest – equips us with the capacity to analyse big datasets, whether at rest or streaming in real time.
- The Alan Turing Institute will catalyse a major collaboration between research and business and will be a national institute of global significance bringing together advanced mathematics and computing for human benefit across a wide range of sectors.
- PDG members are contributing through the Met Office’s new High Performance Computer which as one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world when fully installed, will also be a catalyst for regional growth in the South West, supporting collaboration and partnerships between science, business and academia.

Support for growing your business

All of these activities are supported by the wider framework for supporting UK business with much more information and guidance available here: http://www.greatbusiness.gov.uk/ Annex A: Breakdown of responses to the PDG survey

Awareness and usage

Question 1: Have you used any of the following in the last 12 months?

Almost 86% of responses from those using data were using data from more than one organisation.

Question 2: Which one of the following sources provided most of your information on the data sets held by PDG members?

| Source of information | Count of responses | % of responses | |------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------|----------------| | Other - please specify (free text box below) | 58 | 40.56% | | PDG members’ websites | 31 | 21.68% | | This survey | 29 | 20.28% | | Data.Gov.UK | 22 | 15.38% | | Government publications | 3 | 2.10% |

“Other” included a long list of sources from Local Authorities to specific online commentators e.g. Owen Boswarva. Question 3: Before reading this survey, to what extent were you aware that the vast majority of the data held by the PDG members was available for commercial re-use?

| | Count of responses | % of responses | |----------------------|--------------------|----------------| | Fully aware | 43 | 30.07% | | Not at all aware | 22 | 15.38% | | Somewhat aware | 78 | 54.55% |

Question 4: To what extent are you aware that PDG members make large amounts of their data available for free?

| | Count of responses | % of responses | |----------------------|--------------------|----------------| | Fully aware | 44 | 30.77% | | Not at all aware | 24 | 16.78% | | Somewhat aware | 75 | 52.45% |

Access

Question 5: How easy did you find it to identify and use the free data sets?"

| | Count of responses | % of responses | |--------------------------------------|--------------------|----------------| | Not applicable (have never used free data sets) | 9 | 6.29% | | Very easy | 9 | 6.29% | | Somewhat easy | 55 | 38.46% | | Somewhat hard | 36 | 25.17% | | Very hard | 34 | 23.78% |

Question 6: How easy did you find it to identify and use those data sets that require payment?

| | Count of responses | % of responses | |--------------------------------------|--------------------|----------------| | Not applicable (have never paid for data sets) | 40 | 27.97% | | Very easy | 15 | 10.49% | | Somewhat easy | 38 | 26.57% | | Somewhat hard | 19 | 13.29% | | Very hard | 31 | 21.68% |

Question 7: Please rank from 1-5 any challenges you have faced when using data from a PDG member (figures are average ranking)

| | Fewer than 10 employees | 10 - 50 employees | 51 - 250 employees | 251 - 1000 employees | More than 1000 employees | |----------------------|-------------------------|------------------|-------------------|----------------------|-------------------------| | Licence | 4.0 | 3.8 | 3.5 | 2.1 | 3.1 | | Price | 4.0 | 3.5 | 3.4 | 2.1 | 3.4 | | Awareness | 3.8 | 2.7 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.6 | | Format | 2.8 | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.1 | 2.3 | | Skills | 2.8 | 1.9 | 2.2 | 1.5 | 2.6 | Question 8: Do you consider any of the following factors a requirement/pre-requisite for you to make effective use of data?

| | Fewer than 10 employees | 10 - 50 employees | 51 - 250 employees | 251 - 1000 employees | More than 1000 employees | Total | % of Total | |----------------------|-------------------------|-------------------|--------------------|----------------------|--------------------------|-------|------------| | Contact Point | 54 | 5 | 7 | 2 | 9 | 77 | 53.85% | | APIs | 24 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 42 | 29.37% | | Supporting Tools | 21 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 34 | 23.78% | | Linked Data | 17 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 33 | 23.08% | | None | 15 | 11 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 37 | 25.87% |

Developer Licences

Question 9: Before reading this survey was you aware that “Developer Licences” (e.g. licences that allow free usage of data in the development phase of a project) were available?

| | Fewer than 10 employees | 10 - 50 employees | 51 - 250 employees | 251 - 1000 employees | More than 1000 employees | Total | % of Total | |----------------------|-------------------------|-------------------|--------------------|----------------------|--------------------------|-------|------------| | No | 63 | 10 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 91 | 63.64% | | Yes | 20 | 13 | 7 | 3 | 9 | 52 | 36.36% |

Question 10: In your opinion, what is the maximum level of annual commercial income a business should be generating to qualify for a “Developer Licence”?

| | Fewer than 10 employees | 10 - 50 employees | 51 - 250 employees | 251 - 1000 employees | More than 1000 employees | Total | % of Total | |----------------------|-------------------------|-------------------|--------------------|----------------------|--------------------------|-------|------------| | More than £50,000 | 51 | 11 | 6 | 1 | 8 | 77 | 53.85% | | Up to £10,000 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 3.50% | | Up to £20,000 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 13 | 9.09% | | Up to £5,000 | 16 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 35 | 24.48% | | Up to £50,000 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 13 | 9.09% | Question 11: In your opinion, what is the maximum time a Developer Licence should be available for?

| | Fewer than 10 employees | 10 - 50 employees | 51 - 250 employees | 251 - 1000 employees | More than 1000 employees | Total | % of Total | |----------------|-------------------------|-------------------|-------------------|----------------------|--------------------------|-------|------------| | Longer than 1 year | 60 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 11 | 92 | 64.34% | | Up to 1 month | 1 | | | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2.10% | | Up to 1 year | 15 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 29 | 20.28% | | Up to 3 months | 3 | 2 | | 2 | 1 | 8 | 5.59% | | Up to 6 months | 7 | 2 | | 1 | 1 | 11 | 7.69% |

Selected comments:

- A clear and succinct license e.g. akin to CC licenses
- A developer licence should allow to un-restricted analysis and exploration of the data.
- Terms and conditions should be limited to only preventing the use of data in fully published products or service
- Any company should be able to get a developer license (even if they're a brand new start up so not VAT registered etc). Developer Licenses should be as simple and flexible as possible.
- Cooperative, as required, ie. able to discuss need. Flexibility.
- The system really needs to be friendlier to small start-up businesses.
- I think the data providers should be allowed to watermark developer data.
- When someone applies for a licence, possibly making them aware of other relevant data might be worthwhile.
- It needs to cover the use of national data (not small sample) in industry standard format limited to internal non-commercial use. Technical documentation and support would be beneficial.
- Should not constrain the developer in terms of quantity or time as it may be necessary to performance test applications with large datasets.
- Consider rate limits or other mechanisms to allow developers to develop and test but protect the data.

Background information on who responded

Question 14: What is the size of your organisation?

| Organisation size | Count of responses | % of responses | % of total UK businesses (for comparison) | |----------------------------|--------------------|----------------|------------------------------------------| | Fewer than 10 employees | 83 | 58.04% | 88.30% | | 10 - 50 employees | 23 | 16.08% | 9.63% | | 51 - 250 employees | 11 | 7.69% | 1.66% | | 251 - 1000 employees | 8 | 5.59% | 0.40% | | More than 1000 employees | 18 | 12.59% | | Question 15: Which category best describes your company’s area of business?

| Sector | Count of responses | % of responses | |-------------------------------|--------------------|----------------| | Housing/Real Estate | 38 | 26.57% | | Data/Technology | 27 | 18.88% | | Other | 18 | 12.59% | | Geospatial/mapping | 14 | 9.79% | | Environment and weather | 11 | 7.69% | | Education | 10 | 6.99% | | Business and Legal Services | 8 | 5.59% | | Research and consulting | 7 | 4.90% | | Scientific Research | 7 | 4.90% | | Energy | 1 | 0.70% | | Finance and investment | 1 | 0.70% |

## Annex B: Update on previous commitments

| Commitment | Status | Comments | |---------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------| | **Making a range of substantial data sets available as Open Data** | | | | Companies House will be making all of their digital data available free of charge from the second quarter of 2015. | On track | Further information will be provided in coming months. | | In 2015 Land Registry intends to develop a Publication Platform which will provide easy access to all their existing and future datasets. | On track | | | In 14/15 Land Registry intend to make the whole Index Map polygon layer covering England and Wales available at a cost recovery price and OS licencing conditions. | On track | Planned for first half of the 2015/2016 financial year | | Land Registry will release their Price Paid Data for commercially owned properties for free by March 2015. | On track | Planned for first half of the 2015/2016 financial year | | Met Office is adding more data to the DataPoint API and providing INSPIRE compliant formats | Complete | Real time datafeed of last 24 hours Marine Observations now available as Open Data | | In addition it is developing a system to create the National Archive for the Nations Memory of the Weather – a collection of the historical observation data - and a selection of this will be available as Open Data | In progress | Further information will be provided in coming months. | | Ordnance Survey committed to new enhancements to their Open Data portfolio | Exceeded | A package of new open data products was announced in February including maps of road and water networks as well as brand new vector map designed to work with latest mobile and web platforms. See [here](#) for more details | | In addition they are working with the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to provide consultancy, technology and to enhance public access (through a portal) to Rights of Way data. | On hold. | Release of Data Fund and Breakthrough Fund requests for funding of LAs rejected. | | **Setting the standard for the quality of UK open data** | | | | Improvements to Linked Data | In progress | CH is working to geospatially link their records. | | Ensuring that all PDG data sets available on Data.Gov.UK have been assessed against the Open Data Certificate from the Open Data | Some complete, some in progress | CH have undertaken the process for their corporate data and are | Institute by December 2014.

| Further enhancing support to developers to generate economic growth | |---------------------------------------------------------------| | **Review of developer licences** | **In progress** | **See above.** | | In addition, Ordnance Survey are implementing a try-before-you-buy scheme for new commercial partners (3 months royalty free access to premium data). | Complete | OS are also exploring further options to increase developer access and in March will be removing minimum royalties for all partners | | PDG will look to combine and extend existing challenge programmes | Complete/ In progress | Joint GeoVation Challenge sponsored by Land Registry and Ordnance Survey was launched on 10 September 2014 | | Each PDG member will offer a user group forum by 2015 ensuring that users have a space to discuss issues and access to direct advice. | In progress | CH implemented a developers Hub. |

LR have undertaken the certification process.

MO have undertaken the certification process (completed by ODI) but not yet published. Rating assessed as Standard with some elements of Expert achieved,

OS have not completed this as yet as the focus has been on the new open data releases and licence changes. Annex C: Further details on the data available from PDG members

Companies House

All data is either available at cost recovery or as open data. Companies House has a range of open data products. These include basic information on companies, that is accessed over 300230 million times a year, to a free bulk accounts data product:

**Free Basic Company Information**

The Free Company Data Product is a downloadable data snapshot containing basic company data of live companies on the register. CH’s free company data product contains basic company data of all live companies on the register in reusable format. The files have been downloaded over 22,000 times since its launch.

**Free Accounts Data Product**

The accounts data product is a free, downloadable file containing approximately 2.4 million accounts that have been filed digitally with CH (available as iXBRL data as a .html file, or XBRL data as a .xml file). This puts the UK in a world leading position in providing accounts data free of charge.

The accounts files contain accounts elements including:

- Directors’ Report
- Auditors Report
- Profit and Loss
- Balance Sheet
- Notes to the Balance Sheet
- Footnotes (for micro-entity accounts)

iXBRL submissions reference UK GAAP taxonomy and contains 6,654 possible elements, of which a sub-set of minimum tagging list of 1,253 elements has been determined by HMRC. XBRL submissions reference multiple UK GAAP taxonomies, which will have similar numbers of elements.

**URI**

The URI is a service using a simple Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) for each company on the register. The URI is a unique web address that represents the company (using the ‘business.data.gov.uk’ domain); and will return basic company details for that company (as per the fields above for the free basic information product). It has been accessed over 460 million times.

**Mobile App**

The CH mobile app allows free access to basic company details, with additional features such as statistics and frequently viewed companies. It has been downloaded by approximately 135,000 users. All information recorded on the Register is available through the Open Register albeit at a cost per title. Commercial Services are available which provide products and services, using Register data in a useable and accessible format. The existing open data offer includes:

**Price paid data** - dating back to 1995 in excel, csv and linked data formats for records. This means that there are available more than 19 million definitive records of monthly residential property price data (sold for market value). Available in txt, csv file or linked data.

**The INSPIRE dataset** – which depicts the legal extent of all Freehold properties in England and Wales is one of the most popular and frequently downloaded datasets on Data.Gov.UK.

**House Price Index** – a comparison of the average house price today with what it was in January 1995, with the index set then at 100. It includes figures at national, regional, county and London borough level. Available as the monthly pdf doc, background data in csv/excel and linked data.

**Transaction Data** - provides information about the number and types of applications that have been completed by conveyancers.

**The 1862 Act Register** - contain scanned images of Land Registry’s historical 1862 Act Register. The original records are in 272 volumes, containing a mix of handwritten or typed pages made from parchment, waxed linen or paper, and printed documents and deed plans. The digital version is an exact replica of the original paper version. The Met Office has a large range of data available under the Open Government Licence. In broad terms it can be described as the data behind that which is published on the Met Office Public Website. Data which isn’t Open is made available either through Met Office Standard Terms and Conditions or for research purposes.

**DataPoint** is the Met Office API which makes available both daily and 3 hourly forecasts, updated hourly, for over 5,000 locations, as open data. The data is provided in a format that is suitable for application developers. Over the last six months there have been around 40 million data requests with an average daily data download of around 54 GB. Examples of the data accessible through DataPoint include:

- **Rainfall Radar** - a map overlay for the UK showing the rainfall radar image for the UK.
- **Total cloud cover forecast map layer** - a map overlay for the UK showing a forecast of total cloud cover for the UK.

The underpinning model data used to create the Public Weather Service outputs is available through the ECOMET Wholesale Catalogue. A range of models are made available from Global atmospheric to Northwest Shelf Seas. This data is primarily used by competing weather service providers both UK and overseas.

A range of Historic data is currently available at no charge for private or research use through the Library or from a dedicated sales team for commercial use.

The UK academic community have access to both archived model data and observations through an arrangement with BADC (British Atmospheric Data Centre), free of charge. The Ordnance Survey offers an extensive suite of commercial products which are available for free for developmental use in either a limited form, for a limited duration or under limits to their use.

**OS Open Data** already provides over 10 quality assured, continuously updated products, from postcodes and boundaries to digital maps, providing a one-stop shop to start using their products such as:

- **Boundary-Line** provides Electoral and administrative boundaries. (Image shows Boundary-Line over OS VectorMap District)
- **OS VectorMap District** allows you to overlay your own information on a customisable map background.
- **OS Terrain 50 Regional** scale height data that will improve your analysis work.
- **Meridian 2** - Digital maps customisable for communication and topographical themes and route planning.
- **Code-Point Open** offers all of the current postcode units in Great Britain. (Image shows Code-Point Open over OS VectorMap District)
- **OS StreetView** provides a generalised and simplified street level map, ideal for city-centre plans.

Ordnance Survey also provides an API (OS OpenSpace) which enables developers to embed Ordnance Survey mapping in their solution. This has over 10,000 registered users and over 2,000 active sites running.

Further products have been announced, including the new OS OpenMap which will provide a new street level dataset designed to be the most detailed open data mapping product available for Great Britain, as well as an Open Water Network and Improved Gazetteer, and will be available at the end of March 2015. More details on these, and other improvements, can be found [here](#).